May 13th, 2006
Endurance - Yes, Strength - No!
After a year off I seem to have turned, if you’ll excuse the motorbike analogy, from a hulking great V-twin with plenty of torque and power, but very thirsty on fuel, into a puny little moped. Revvy, noisy (!), goes for hours on a single powerbar and sips of water, but runs out of steam up hills, where I end up spinning granny ring for all it’s worth. Try to push a bigger gear and I get horrible lactic acid build up, worse than intervals or evening 10s. And I’m not talking big or steep hills here :-(
On the plus side my endurance is better. I can spin like a bastard for hours and hours and not get tired. For Mountain Mayhem IX on the traditional singlespeed changing down and spinning just isn’t an option. This is going to hurt.
So I asked some buddies how to I get some proper strength in my legs in just 6 weeks?
Singlespeed Saturdays
Almost universally concencus was to go out and break myself riding up gert big hills on the singlespeed.
Well, apart from a rather worrying offer from Matt2.4 and Samuri to ride up Rivington Pike wearing thongs with fivers hanging out of them as some sort of incentive! And frankly, the least said about 360 and his DPM camo thong the better. I could post a link, but even I have some boundaries of taste and decency.
So, I took them up on the offer.
I have decided that from now until Mayhem every saturday is going to be Singlespeed Saturday. The plan is not necessarily to do miles, but to do lots and lots of climbing.
Climb until I break, and then grovel home.
Stepfest
So today I was dropped off mid-errand by Kirsty a suitable distance from Rivington Pike, and away I went. A quick spin along the canal in the pissing rain, dodging puddles and dog-turds led me to some quiet back lanes, and then into the woods. It became apparent very early on that:
- I was having a crap day at technical riding, and
- everyone else was staying at home because of the weather.
Great.
I took the oppportunity of the quiet to explore some trails of dubious legality. I was rewarded with some sweet bluebell lined singletrack. I also discovered lots and lots of steps.
By the time I got to the Pike my handling was up to scratch, or so I thought, until one of the steeper sets of steps caught me out.
Imagine my disappointment when I saw neither hide nor hair of Matt and samuri and their shiny white arses as I made my way up to the Pike.
Things were only properly cut short as I descended from the Pike and managed a fantastic blowout.
This was one of those occasions when a patch just isn’t going to fix it. As I replaced the tube with a Specialized freebie from the EnduroPlus I couldn’t help thinking it felt a little small. Turns out it was only a 24″. Cheeky feckers.
Unfortunately with no more spare tubes I thought it best to call it a day and start the ride home rather than risk more punctures.
According to plan I broke.
Every small hill in the the last hour was a grovel as the lactic acid built up and my legs went to jelly.
Same again next week? Yes please.
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May 14th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Good call Nick, lots of single speed hill climbs are probably just what I need also, Afan next weekend will be a good start :-0